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Murphy’s Law, Series 4 (UK, 2006)

Created by: Colin Bateman. It took me a while to track down the rest of this show, not so much because it was hard to find, but because I didn’t feel particularly motivated to do so. I really enjoyed the first season, and I think the second. The third season—this blog’s first entry—didn’t particularly blow me away, but it had enough stuff to keep me going. I remember that Michael Fassbender’s appearance as a smarmy supporting villain must have been more central to my interest in the show than I thought, because this fourth season didn’t really do it for me. It even had Liam Cunningham, who I really love, but there still isn’t quite enough to tip it over the edge. I suppose it’s a perfectly good show, and this fourth season was pretty okay, if all you want is to pass the time. I’m definitely a comparer though, and I compare this with other excellent British crime shows like Prime Suspect and Cracker, both of which are fucking great. Murphy’s Law, ultimately, is usually just pretty alright, and sometimes kind of bad actually. There’s nothing really that new with the character of Tommy Murphy. He’s definitely gotten more dour and less wisecracking than in the first two years, which you could interpret as a character arc, but he always comes back to the job, apparently for no reason, and it seems to be the same hackneyed “I’m a maverick rogue who’s addicted to the job.” It’s a cliche that makes 90% of cop dramas unbearable, and it’s what made The Hurt Locker kind of disappointing for me as well. Of course, I’m being unfair here. I keep coming back to this show because it serves its purpose: it passes the time. As far as escapism goes, Murphy’s Law delivers. I have to say, Brian McCardie, whose unbearably histrionic overacting contributed pretty substantially to the ridiculousness of Rob Roy, was kind of unbearably overacting, but I guess it worked. And, for all my griping, there’s only one more season, and I’m totally going to watch it, and I’ll probably enjoy it too.